This may sound like a sexist statement but it’s true. Wonder Woman 1984 is a movie written, produced and directed by women, for women. (Patty Jenkins is the director and co-writer/co-producer while lead actor Gal Gadot is a co-producer.) And I don’t mean this as a criticism, rather it’s a feature. After watching a whole series of Marvel and DC movies made by men, it’s kinda refreshing.
Wonder Woman 1984 pays particular attention to clothes which is quite unusual for a superhero movie. The only exception is when Spider-Man takes a few moments to design his Spidey costume. In Wonder Woman 1984, when Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) comes back from the dead, Diana (Gal Gadot) makes him try on various outfits to see which one suits him best.
This may seem like a minor point but it is quite unusual to see. The men superhero movies are full how-to stuff. The Iron Man series spends lot of time on scenes where Tony Stark (Robert Downy Jr.) is designing, testing and building things. This is because most men like to see other men creating things. Wonder Woman 1984 bypasses all that and focuses on everyday situations. In the prequel Wonder Woman, you have Diana trying on outfits when she first comes to London.
And then you have shoes. You see many close up shots of women wearing heels. When Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) successfully navigates wet floor due to water spilled by a janitor, he even complements her on her skill, “Thank god you are good in heels.”
Again, this may seem like a small point but from a man’s perspective this is huge. Reason? The whole plot of the movie The Shawshank Redemption hinges on this fact : that most men are not interested in shoes. So to see a movie focusing so much on shoes is like seeing the world in infrared.
The Shawshank Redemption is a 100 % guy flick (as opposed to a chick flick). Most of it happens insides men’s prison. The only female character is Andy Dufresne’s (Tim Robbins) wife who is vital to the story but does not play a major role. The movie is about the friendship of Andy and Red (Morgan Freeman).
It’s largely a myth that men do not feel emotions or they do not cry. We do but it’s an event that happens as frequently as the total solar eclipse. It happens once every couple of years and does not last very long. If you search around the corners of internet, you will see macho men getting emotional about The Shawshank Redemption. It is IMDb’s top rated movie of all times (9.3/10).
What’s unusual about Andy and Red’s friendship is that it happens purely due to circumstances. In a normal world outside of prison, their paths would never have crossed. Andy was wealthy banker, Red was a contraband smuggler. Destiny put them in the same place at the same time and they connected. Their friendship is based on trust and mutual respect.
Many times friendships are based on commonalities. So you have drinking buddies, golfing buddies or you have friends who are colleagues. Andy and Red have nothing in common. Andy loves chess; Red says, “it’s a total fu**ing mystery. I hate it.” Andy is very well read; when Red learns that The Count of Monte Christo is about a prison break, he thinks it should be filed under “educational tools” in the prison library.
When Andy plans his prison break on a stormy night, he comes back to his cell wearing the warden’s shoes, polished to perfection and no one notices. Recalling this later, Red says, “Seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes?” It’s true. Most men do not look at shoes. Shoes do not enter our consciousness. Can you imagine this scene in Orange is the New Black? Not just the guards, but every female prisoner within 10 meter radius would notice those perfectly polished shoes. The female version of Andy would stand no chance of escaping.
Why do so many men love this movie? There are no action sequences, no hi-fi science fiction, no road rage sequences, no adrenaline raising sports contests. It has one essential guy movies feature – the ingenuity of Andy in planning and executing the prison break but that’s not sufficient to explain its popularity. There are dozens of great prison-break movies out there.
The movie is based on the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. I think what King managed to do is to show the humane side of the prisoners who are condemned to purgatory. Director Frank Darabont not only succeeded in its transition to screen but in fact enhanced it. The superb acting of Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman brought those characters to life on screen.
The best review of the movie was a comment to Stephen King by a viewer,
The Shawshank Redemption is the Casablanca of our generation.
